Warning, Firaxis - Danger! Danger!

[Old Beardy]

Whilst I realise that the Civ games have always been in safe hands I would just like to point out that because of all the recent Civ-type clones out at the moment (I'm thinking CTP and CTP2, here) I would hate it for our
beloved Civ3 to go down that 'mainstream' road. (oh, that's a very bad road, Ted).

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

1. Looking at the new scanned in screenshots of the City screen (and I realise they're alpha gfx) I hope that the workers haven't been replaced by a slider of somesort, like in CTP2. It's part of the fun to know where your workers are getting that 24 food and 18 shields from (and whether those whales are being slaughtered in that sea square). Whilst I think that a slider would be more simple (hence 'mainstream') it also spoils it.
Some of us like to micromanage.

2. Civ3 should definitely have the classic Wonders O' the World. Pyramids, Isaac Newton's College etc... EVEN though they've been done in both Civ1 and 2, don't leave them out, Firaxis! I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that things like the Chichen Itza or Ramayana (NO, not CTP again, go back, back whilst you still can!) aren't exactly wonder material. Maybe their effects can be altered somehow, but don't include daft things. I also don't think things like the discovery of Penicillin should be a wonder (surely that's a discovery). Wonder's should be something you BUILD.

So, Dan (and others at Firaxis who are busy reading this when they should be hurrying up and finishing the game, already) don't change Civ3 for
simplicity's sake, don't try to 'mainstream' it - keep EVERYTHING that was in the Classic Civ's 1&2 but just make lots of improvements and new ideas.

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'No, no, Dougal, these are SMALL, the ones out there are FAR AWAY.'

[The diplomat]

While I agree with you on your second point, I dissagree with your first point.

I do agree that civ3 needs to keep the old civ wonders that we love so much. It was very dissapointing how ctp changed a lot of the wonders.

I do not agree with your first point.
I, personally, do not like workers on the tiles as implemented so far in civ. I do not like the micromanagement it can lead to as your empire gets bigger and bigger. Remember that not everybody likes micromanagement.
Furthermore, I feel that it is misplaced in civ because the game should be about empire building. Managing workers on tiles does not fit that category. Managing workers is too "tactical" for civ.
So, I would love it if there were sliders instead.

The important thing is the implementation. Ctp failed at this part because of it did not implement it correctly. If Firaxis changes to sliders, it needs to properly implemented it for it to work.

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No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.

[Old Beardy]

Whilst I agree that some people don't like to micromanage, I hope Firaxis
don't abandon those that do. So why not have both? There could be a slider at the "national" level which alters the food/production/trade levels in all the cities but if you wish to individually alter the workers of a specific one then they should be visible on the city screen to do that.

If we look at the screenshots then it'd be a shame to have a city produce 28 food and not know where they came from. It'd be like an invisible city, almost.

On a different point, one idea that could be "borrowed" from CTP was that of wages. Reducing your money reserves to increase production. BUT not to increase trade which is something that produces money. Hmm, would this work or not? It sounds a bit too similar to a rush buy.

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Presented in double vision (where drunk).

[shuttleswo]

My biggest problem with the city management in civ2 wasn't that you knew where the workers were working in civ2 but that you had to go into city management and 'reassign' a worker to take advantage of a recently improved tile. i think there should be a toggle for each city which would allow an AI to dynamically re-assign your workers to take the best advantage of the available tiles in your city radius. for those who don't want the compter to make those decisions, or when you need a city to optimize a partuclar categoy (production etc.) you could turn off the automatic mechanism and manually set your workers.
I guess what i'm proposing is similar to the mayors concept in CTP or SMAC's mayors, but more limited, or should i say selective in what they can do. I know i personally never used the CTP or SMAC mayors, because i wanted to micromanage what the cities built, but would have liked it if i still could have used mayors to manage the land around the city (at least in SMAC, CTP has a whole different structure), which is something i find tedious once i have over 10 cities to manage.

i totally agree about the wonders though; CTP's wonders were just bizzare.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The slider bars at the national level are a good idea. I am one of those micromanagers and I like to move my workers around.

The wonders of ctp are totally out of wack. FIRAXIS, keep the wonders you already have and then maybe add one more to each time period.

Not everything should be kept from Civ I and II. I think that the "health bar" on the units is a little out of date. And also we should get ride of caravans and have the city "hire" traders who pass by. Each turn, a city has a random chance of getting merchants who pass through the city. For a sum of gold, they're willing to carry your good anywhere else. They never fail, and don't take any royalties. Only a one time payment

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Its okay to smile; you're in America now

[Ilkuul]

Nice idea, about caravans actually being independent traders. I have a problem, though, with your wording that "a city has a random chance of getting merchants who pass through". Are you imagining that these merchants just suddenly pop up in your city, out of nowhere? Or will they be like barbarians, who randomly appear in huts or in uninhabited regions nearby, and then make their way to one of your cities?

If they function like barbarians, I can see some interesting extensions of the idea: They could be destroyed (by barbarians or others) before they reach you; so to prevent this, when you see them appearing near one of your cities, you could send a unit or two to protect them and escort them in. Conversely, you could surround an enemy city in the early game and prevent merchants from reaching them, thus stunting their economic growth.

But I'm not sure that I agree with your final statements, i.e. that "they never fail, and don't take any royalties. Only a one time payment." Why so? Why not a small 'annual' fee, perhaps increasing with the size of your city? And why shouldn't they fail on occasion? -- Attacked by your enemies, or maybe lured away by an enemy city that can offer higher pay? Merchants have never been known for unfailingly keeping every agreement!

[Skeeve]

It seems to me that the more choices we have as players the more value will be added to the game, and the more likely the chance of it becoming a great classic like its predecessors.

Micromanage/Macromanage... the ability to do both should be there.
Classic Wonders / New Wonders... A switch before the game starts perhaps.
Trade Route/Caravans... Utilization of Both, neither or just one; Choices! We want the choice.

Ultimately, Choices always add value. Take any product, not just computer games. When you have a choice in something, it is always more valuable. Would you go to a restaurant that had only 1 item on the menu? Why do you suppose there are about 16 different versions of Coca-Cola.
Think about it. Coke, Diet-Coke, Caffein Free Coke, Caffein Free Diet-Coke, Classic Coke, Cherry Coke, Cherry Diet-Coke, Cherry Diet No Caffein Classic blah blah blah... Get the picture?

Choices. They add value.

Just do it.

Ironically, would you believe I'm Pro-Life? Heh heh.

- Skeeve

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My reach exceeds my grasp!

[Chronus]

LAWRENCE QUOTE: "I think that the "health bar" on the units is a little out of date."

Out of date? Hmmm, then I must be "out of date". So then, what is the latest mechanism to reflect this?

I thought the "health bar" concept, whether it be a computer game, role-playing game, or whatever, was always a good, standard mechanism.

[Old Beardy]

Regarding the health bars, if you look at one of the screenshots you can see little green vertical bars (segmented, mind) on some of the units. These could be the health bars you mentioned. It's only on the one shot, but on all the three land units. I hope these represent the health of a unit, it would be a shame if the combat didn't have them, or worse still if the combat took place on a separate screen ala. CTP.

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'That's it. Come on legs, don't fail me now.'

[MrFun]

Um - merchant behavior is NOT random. Merchants make decisions based on profit motivation.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I like you suggestions Ikuul. Very good.

You guys are out of date. What i meant was that instead of having a health bar nest to the unit, you can click on it and it says like 40/60 or something like that. If a unit takes 200 shields to build then it would be like 200/200. But the green bar next to the unit wouldnt look good in the gameplay.

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Its okay to smile; you're in America now

[airdrik]

I think I would rather the bar because then you can just look and compare healthbars rather than having to click on the unit to see how many hp's it has. I like the idea of being able to see exactly how many hp's it has, though.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia on 04-06-2001 05:22 PM ...the green bar next to the unit wouldnt look good in the gameplay.

Thanks for the compliment, Lawrence; I'd be interested to know what people think about merchants appearing in the same sort of way as barbarians. (In technical terms, maybe they could belong to the same 'civ' as barbarians -- to avoid taking up an extra civ 'slot', see the discussion on this in other threads.)

I have to disagree with you, tho', about the health bar. I agree that it takes away from realism in gameplay, but having to click on every enemy unit to see what their health is would be way more effort and complication than simply looking at their health bars on the screen! Or maybe there would be a way of turning the health display on and off -- like the map grid in Civ2? That might be a good solution, then those who want health permanently displayed could keep it on, and those who only need to see it in battle could turn it on then, and off again afterwards...

(Since posting this I've seen that it 'crossed' with Airdrik's, which says basically the same thing.)


[This message has been edited by Ilkuul (edited April 06, 2001).]

[airdrik]

I say keep the health bar, it doesn't take away from anything, and how are you to know how many hit points it has? If you have a unit with 3 hit points left you aren't very likely to send it into battle as it is very likely that it will get killed, and if you see a unit with only 3 hit points you are going to jump on that unit as fast as you can because you are likely to kill it before it gets a chance to retaliate (unless it is fortified mech inf in fortifications on mountains).

As for managing your cities I am all for macro and micromanaging them. Perhaps 3 auto- choices for distributing the workers: max food, max sheilds, and max trade. Each one maxes out that type of productions and compensates for deficites in the other two, ie. if you set it to max sheilds, but that causes hunger, then it will take away from one of the lesser sheild-producing squares and replace it with a higher food producing square. In all cases the other two are maximised so that their total (before taking away for things like corruption and support, etc.) is as big as it can be. Ex. you are set for maximised food, and there is a choice between an ocean square (pre-harbor) and an undeveloped plains square, then it will take the ocean square (2 trade is more than 1 sheild).

[St Leo]

What's wrong with Chitzen Itza? It's much more of a wonder than the hypothetical Sir Isaac Newton's College.

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Leons Petrazickis (St. Leo)
http://aventine.cf-developer.net/minizigg/
petrazi@sprint.ca